End of the Semester Update

Man, it’s been way too long since I have updated this blog. I wanted to update you guys on what I’ve been up to over here in the cool new studio. So I’m going to make this a catch all update.

While I was working on my thesis (Mother Road Revisited) I actually went back to my roots for a bit, and did this night photo of the Shasta Camper I traveled with.

I feel like I have a pretty good handle on light temperatures and how I want my night photography to go from here on out, I just have to find a project so to shoot at night again. I really do miss it.

 

A couple weeks later I shot a wedding in New Mexico, and then school started quite quickly. I ended up doing a photo shoot of a couple of my friends messing around with water guns in Dallas. Another night photo situation, I wish I had more reasons to be shooting with such a short shutter speed more often.

 

While I was in Texas, I ended up doing a photo shoot for a friend who is also in his thesis year at a school in London, England. He is studying acting, and his thesis revolves around RipVanWinkle. Because of this, he wanted to see if I could get his character in an environment that would illustrate Rip’s world. My dad has a green house that is being over grown by plants…and I thought it was perfect.

 

Once school had been going strong for a bit, I was hired to photograph a metal working shop for a brochure they were putting together to show the items they could make, and their machines..here is a product shot I did for that:

 

I had to go back up to St.Louis to rephotograph a couple things for my thesis, and ran into a friend from high school. We decided to go look at the chain of rocks bridge, it was pretty neat, and it is on Route 66. 

 

This year at my undergrad, the art department decided to do an alumni show, and I was asked to participate..So I put this photo of the batmen kids I photographed at a garage sale a friend of mine and I stumbled upon.

photo of gallery courtesy of Todd Goehner

 

In October I went to Washington D.C. to talk to George Mason University about my thesis project. I spoke for an hour about pulling together all the resources I needed, and how one would do all of the work I did in the length I did it, and still want to make art…

 

I think the talk went very well, and the audience asked a lot of really great questions. I got to see DC for the first time, and really enjoyed spending a couple hours a day on the subway. 

And obviously, I have been working very hard on my thesis, I finally have a working light box, which you can see in a video here. I got a friend to illustrate a 4ft x 8ft map, which we actually have mostly finished…

I still need to add a frame and some feet on the bottom of the map, but over all I think it’s done. The frame will do a lot for it.

I asked a friend to cut together some pieces of video for a research video competition I was entering my Mother Road Revisited project in and I just found out I won the contest! The first prize is 1000 dollars to put towards your research. So I’m excited about putting that towards my thesis. (see the video that won here)

If you want to stay in the loop about my Mother Road Revisited project, jump on over to the website and take a look at the blog.

Anyway, That’s an update on my current situation…thanks for reading, and I’ll work on updating a little more consistently.

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New Studio!

Hey guys! Man, it’s been a crazy summer, and I am finally able to sit down and write a new post on my personal blog. As you may know, I spent the summer rephotographing Route 66, for my thesis project entitled Mother Road Revisited (if you haven’t gotten to look at the website, check it out). Anyway, in other news, I bought a 6 x 9 letterpress, more on that in my next post. But, a few weeks before I left for my adventure down Route 66, we moved into our new studios in downtown Tulsa. I took some photos before my semester critiques (which is when my studio is it’s cleanest.) So I thought I’d post them:

This is shot from where I placed my desk. My studio is the only one with a brick wall like this. Our building is a refurbished building that is required to have some of the original structure in it. Thus, this brick wall, but I love it. I also have North facing windows, so I have beautiful light at all times, except at night, obviously.

This is shot from where the couch is, all of the studios have these great sinks, I can actually do some version of a darkroom with this sink. I have been working with gum bichromate a lot lately, which is a water based process, so the sink is perfect for it. You can see at the end of the room, on the wall the beginnings of my ‘Alter Ego’ project, those two images star two of my favorite models, Kyle Blair and Sean Terska.

I started messing with the idea of screenprinting illustrations over my photography, so I came up with this collaboration with Jeremiah Christie, from Hovertank Diaries and John Spriggs, from Jeb Kennedy. Jeremiah wrote stories about each photo, while John did illustrations about the stories. The stories are printed on a Japanese paper behind the photo, while the illustration is screen printed on top of the photo. I then waxed the photos, so they became more translucent. They don’t photograph all that well, you can kind of see the words behind the photo on the bottle image in the top right. But I would like to back light them at some point.

You can see here the gum bichromates I’ve been doing. Some of them are actual prints from the darkroom, while others are scanned prints and then digitally printed on Japanese paper…mostly just messing around with my options right now.

This is the wall that is mostly about my Route 66 project. These maps show the route I would took in June from Chicago to LA, with the cities circled that I have postcards for along the way.

Anyway, there’s the studio, and a look into what I have been working on in the last year. Hopefully it will all look a little more complete come April.

Talk to you soon,
Natalie

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Palm Springs Photo Festival 2012

The past week or so I have been attending the Palm Springs Photo Festival which takes place in Palm Springs, California (not Florida). The conference is always a place of inspiration and community. We hear from all types of photographer from journalists to fine art. I had the opportunity to take a workshop with Shelby Lee Adams on blending and shaping light. He is a great teacher and I really enjoyed spending time with him and the other students in the class. We were able to shoot on location with 2 models on Tuesday and Wednesday. The first location was a “seedy” hotel,  and a biker bar. Here are some images I made during those shoots.

As you can see I used a wide angle on a lot of these, mostly because I thought it would be best if I practiced something I didn’t usually have the means to practice. So, I went with it. I tried to stick with super wide all the time, unless I just couldn’t pass up a good 50mm shot. Our models were really great, and easy to work with.

Other than working with models I met a bunch of really great photographers, and got critique from people like Mary Virginia Swanson, Steven Kasher, Chris Pichler (Nazraeli Press) and Karen Sinsheimer (Santa Barbra Museum of Art). The critiques went very well, and I am excited about the ball that is perpetually rolling forward on my Mother Road Revisited project.

Finally, at the evening presentations I had the opportunity to listen to Gerd Ludwig talk about “The Long Shadow of Chernobyl” project and Ron Haviv on his career as a journalist and Nigel Perry enlightened us on how to become a celebrity photographer (he assured us that basically you have to be a good con-artist). All in all, as usual, the week was mind blowing and enriching. If you ever have the opportunity to join all of us at the Palm Springs Photo Festival, I say do it. No matter what.

Anyway, as always, thanks for reading, and be sure to check out the Mother Road Revisited project. It’s really getting some speed.

-Natalie

P.S. check out my new friend Jeff Frost’s timelaps photography called “Flawed Symmetry of Prediction” it’s pretty mind blowing.

P.P.S if you’re more into alternative process like wet plate collodion, check this out: http://vimeo.com/39578584 with a photographer that is making huge wet plate collodions out of the back of an ice cream truck.

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Days are Long; Years are Short

Goodness. I have been meaning to update for weeks. So, this update will be a bulk of the things I have be up to over the last few months, and a preview of what I’m doing in the future weeks. First of all, I am traveling to Palm Springs, CA for a photo conference this Sunday. This will be the third time I have attended, and I am pumped. Second, I have been traveling all over the midwest in the last few weeks. I was in Dallas shooting pictures of Jesse:

Under a Bridge

Dallas Skyline

Upside Down

Jesse’s a fun model, and I enjoy shooting with him, especially in Deep Ellum. I have also been working with gum bi-chromate, and that’s been quite the adventure. Here are a few successes and…and a few failures. but I’m learning. That’s for sure.

This will be a full color when I have it all figured out.

I'm making this into an etch when it's finished

Kurt in the Vegas Boneyard

If you want to see other photos of Kurt and Rosey at the Boneyard, check ’em out here

Tyson and the TV's

I think the last two have some paper issues, but I’m working them out, for sure. And finally! Last week my dad and I traveled up to Louisville, KY to pick up a ’64 Shasta. It isn’t perfect, but it’s slowly working in that direction. It was an adventure that lasted 3 days and 36 hours of driving. Dad and I had a great time, but it was quite the tiring trip. Anyway, here’s a photo of the Shasta:

'64 Shasta

Phew. Anyway, that’s what I’ve been up to. I’m sure I’ll post another entry when I get back from Palm Springs, but until then, thanks for reading!

-Nattles

P.S. If you’re interested in following the progress of the “MotherRoad: Revisited” Project, check out the facebook page, website, and twitter!

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